Olive Branch From The Ira?

Group Makes Vow Of Sorts As Government Put On Hold

February 13, 2000|By Ray Moseley, Tribune Foreign Correspondent.

LONDON — Britain suspended on Friday the 10-week-old Northern Ireland government in which Catholics and Protestants shared power, holding that there had been insufficient progress in efforts to get the Irish Republican Army to give up its arms.

But hours later an independent commission with responsibility for the arms question issued a fresh report saying the IRA had indicated earlier in the day it "will initiate a comprehensive process to put arms beyond use, in a manner as to ensure maximum public confidence."

The commission headed by Canadian Gen. John de Chastelain said the IRA statement "holds out the real prospect of an agreement" that will enable the commission to fulfill its mandate. The commission's mandate expires May 22, when disarmament by the IRA and all other paramilitary groups, Catholic and Protestant, is supposed to be completed.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair's office welcomed the report as "a development of real significance." But Britain's Northern Ireland secretary, Peter Mandelson, said it remained unclear whether the IRA had now given a commitment to disarm.

He said if the IRA gives a commitment and a time frame for completing disarmament, that would "open the way" for him to lift the suspension of the Northern Ireland government.

"The statement implies many things, but they (the IRA) don't state unequivocally what they mean," Mandelson said.

In a day of swift-moving developments, Mandelson announced in Belfast early Friday evening that he had decided with regret to suspend the new government. He said "real progress" had been made in resolving the crisis in the last week, but not enough to justify his withholding the suspension.

With his decision, power over Northern Ireland affairs reverted to the British government. The Northern Ireland executive, legislative assembly and cross-border bodies with the Irish Republic went into the deep freeze.

Only minutes before Mandelson spoke, the leader of the IRA's political wing--Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams--said his party had submitted a "breakthrough proposition" to the British and Irish governments on resolving the impasse.

Mandelson then appeared to brush aside Adams' statement by saying the arms issue could not be overcome by a "last-minute rush on a Friday afternoon."

Later he said he only received a copy of Adams' statement 20 minutes after he had announced the suspension, and had not yet read it. He also said he had not seen the new de Chastelain report when he announced suspension, but said its content would not have altered his decision.

A Sinn Fein official, Alex Maskey, said Mandelson's statements were untrue. He said Mandelson was fully aware of the Sinn Fein proposal before he announced suspension, and knew of the new report as well.

The suspension forestalled the threatened resignation of Northern Ireland First Minister David Trimble, which would have brought about the collapse of the power-sharing government in which Sinn Fein holds two Cabinet posts alongside Protestants and representatives of the Catholic Social Democratic and Labor Party.

Trimble had planned to put his resignation into effect Saturday at a meeting of his Ulster Unionist Party's 860-member council in Belfast. But sources in Belfast said Trimble, dissatisfied with what he had heard from Sinn Fein officials Friday, threatened to resign immediately unless Mandelson announced suspension of the government.

Referring to that, Adams said it was "quite bizarre" that Mandelson had acted in response "to a Unionist threat."

After a long refusal by the Unionists to set up the power-sharing government because of the arms issue, they changed their minds last November--but with the proviso they would not continue with the administration unless the IRA started disposing of arms by Jan. 31. The new government was established on Dec. 2.

The de Chastelain commission reported at the end of January that IRA disarmament had not begun and it had been unable to learn from the IRA when it would. De Chastelain's report was only released by the British government Friday.

The last previous power-sharing government in Northern Ireland was set up in 1974. It collapsed within weeks amid violence from both sides, and it took another 24 years to produce the Good Friday peace agreement.

President Clinton, Blair and the prime minister of the Irish Republic, Bertie Ahern, were involved Friday in a late round of telephone conversations about the crisis before Mandelson finally acted.

In the past week Irish officials have met frequently with Sinn Fein representatives, and have floated various suggestions for overcoming the current crisis. One involved a proposal for reducing the 15,000-member British military presence in Northern Ireland as an inducement to the IRA to disarm.